by Angie Kelly
"Anything unusual we can connect to the necklace, I guess."
"Have you two lost something?" asked the old lady named Mildred. Her small dark eyes darted back and forth between Tomi and me.
There was something weird about her. Her head sat on her shoulders. She had no neck and soft, fine downy hair covered her face and even ruffled when a slight breeze blew past us. Kinda like feathers. Looking at her perched on the top step made me think of a fat bird. Even her nose was narrow and pointed like a beak. Just over her shoulder sat one of the sphinxes.
"No ma'am. We're just looking." I walked up the steps and got busy examining the sphinx opposite her. The other three ladies were now inside the Belvedere admiring the designs on walls and marble floor. My heart started pounding in my chest.
I started feeling around on the rough stone sphinx, which was Greek, with the head of a woman and a lion's body. Each of the sphinxes had a stone floral wreath on its head. They were all different but had similar unsmiling expressions. It must be serious business being a sphinx. I inspected every nook and cranny on the sphinx and even along the wall it sat on and couldn't find anything. Maybe Tomi and I had been wrong, and this wasn't where the clue had pointed us. There was still one more sphinx to search; the one Mildred was leaning against. This sphinx was facing away from me and just over Mildred's shoulder I could see a small slit in the stone on the back of the statue right above the tail. The one I'd just searched didn't have a slit in the back. I took a step towards Mildred, who didn't look like she planned on budging an inch, when this loud squawking sound filled the air as three big black crows came flying out of the Belvedere and landed on the sphinx Mildred had just been leaning against. But Mildred was gone. In her place, perched on the step where she'd been, was another big crow and when I say big, I mean big enough to carry a person away. I didn't see Mildred or her three friends anywhere. Where could they have gone so fast? The crows were silent and watching me with their beady black eyes. And then it suddenly hit me what had happened. Oh no! We needed to find the necklace and get out of here quick.
I crept close enough to the sphinx to see the slit and even reached out to touch it. It was about an inch wide, and as I ran my finger over it, an idea suddenly came to me and I pulled out the polished piece of onyx with the clue on it. I wondered if it would be a perfect fit and suddenly it made perfect sense. I had to feed the riddle to the sphinx! I was about to shove it in when one of the crows pecked the back of my hand, and I dropped the piece of onyx.
"Ouch!" The next thing I knew the crows were all over me in a swarm of cawing and feathers like I was made of bread. Claws tangled in my hair. Black wings beat against my head and face. I was pecked again on my shoulder.
"Tomi! Help me!" I shrieked. I spun around beating at the crows with my fists but they wouldn't let go. Tomi ran over and started swinging her backpack at the birds but hit me in the head instead.
"Sorry!"
"Tomi, get the onyx!" I yelled as I continued to battle the crows. "It's on the ground!"
"Now what do I do?" she asked, after locating and picking up the shiny black stone from the ground. Once Tomi had the onyx, the crows were beginning to loosen their grip on me.
"Put the onyx in the slot on the sphinx's butt!"
"Eew! You mean the butt cra—"
"No dummy! Just hurry up!" I yelled and kicked out towards the slot with my foot when she just stood there clutching the onyx with her mouth hanging open.
Tomi shoved the onyx in all the way. A loud scraping sound startled the crows and they sailed off right over Tomi's head and up and over the nearby treetops. Seconds later they were gone.
"What was with those crazy crows?" Tomi said, gazing off in the direction the crows flew off in. I couldn't look at her. There was no way I was going to tell her the crows had been impersonating four little old English ladies because I had something in my bag I'd taken without permission from the vault back home. And I'd broken it.
Tomi stood and started dusting herself off then at me and burst out laughing.
"What?"
"Your hair," she said, pointing at my head.
I didn't have to see it to know it was a mess. I was just happy I had some left. Now I knew how Devon felt. I reached up to smooth it down and the pain in my shoulder from where I'd been pecked made me wince. My shirt was damp and I knew it was blood. It was what I deserved.
"Lily! Are you okay?" Tomi ran over and put an arm around my waist and guided me over to sit next to the wall by the sphinx. She even gave me one of her chocolate drops, just in case I was in shock, then pulled antiseptic gel from her backpack for my hand and shoulder, which both stung like crazy. After nurse Tomi had me all bandaged up, I noticed the change in the sphinx.
"Hey, look!" I said, around my mouthful of chocolate.
We were sitting on the opposite side of the sphinx, near its head, only now the sphinx's mouth was open. Shoving the onyx in the slot had caused the statue's lower jaw to be pushed outward. We moved closer.
"There's something in its mouth," whispered Tomi.
Inside the sphinx's mouth was a small, black velvet pouch. I snatched it and Tomi and I held our breath as I slowly opened it and pulled out Marie Antoinette's necklace still hanging from a thick, silk ribbon, which had probably once been black but had faded to grey. A couple of the tiny pearls were missing but it was exactly like the picture Devon sent. Up close I noticed that the design in the center of the ring, which was an exact replica of our rings, was actually indented.
"Whoa!" said Tomi taking it out of my hand. "This was actually around Marie Antoinette's neck," she said in awe. Her eyes were actually shining. "Cool!"
"What I want to know is why it has the same design as our rings?" I took the necklace back from Tomi and held it up in front of my ring. There was a magnetic pull between the two, causing a crackling of blue electricity a lot like the blue beams of light coming out of our rings back in the Queen's Grove.
"Uh, Lily," Tomi said, nudging me.
I ignored her. The blue electricity crackling between the necklace and the ring hypnotized me. It was like the two were calling out to each other and I was about to place my ring inside the indentation on the necklace when a metal hook looped through the ribbon and yanked it out of my hand.
"Hey!" I yelped.
"Quite a bad idea, my dear," said Dr. Regina McFarland. The ribbon dangled from her hook hand and she was looking at it like it was her long lost kid. "Hello, beautiful. It's been forty long years since Regina's seen you," she cooed at the necklace. "But I knew she'd get you back one day."
Why was she talking about herself in the third person? Creepy much? "Okay, you've got the stupid thing. Now where's Alex?" I demanded.
"Who?" she said. She put the necklace around her neck and lit up her pipe.
"You said you'd give him back if we found the necklace! Now where is he?" shouted Tomi who was about to jump in Dr. McFarland's face until I grabbed her by the backpack and pulled her back. McFarland's goons took a menacing step forward.
"And you believed me? How sad for you." She blew pipe smoke right in my face making my eyes water. "But don't worry. You'll be joining Mr. Duncan quite soon." Her smile gave me goosebumps.
Tomi and I were practically backed into a corner. There was only one way off the tiny island where the Belvedere sat, the rock bridge, and McFarland and her thugs were blocking the way.
"It's killing you, isn't it?" McFarland walked up to me and lifted my chin up with her cold hook, forcing me to look at her. Her right eye was milky and I wondered if she could see out of it. Up close the deep scar slashing through her cheek was more like a burn. "You're just dying to know what this means, aren't you?" She gestured to the necklace around her neck. "You'd love to know what this pendant can do. I see it in your eyes."
"I couldn't care less, lady. We just want Alex back," I said, but I did want to know, badly.
"Nonsense!" she laughed and her goons laughed too. "I suggest you girls ask your precious Mrs. Tarpley. Sh
e of all people knows exactly what this pendant is all about. After all, this pendant is what allowed her to steal Regina's fiancé."
Tomi and I stared at each other in shock.
"You were engaged to Dr. Tarpley? In what universe would he have wanted to marry a hag like you?" I asked. McFarland's eyes narrows to slits. She swung her real hand out and slapped me hard across the face. Tomi gasped. I rubbed my sore cheek and was about to mouth off again.
"No, Lily," pleaded Tomi. "You're just making things worse."
"Roy, Max, escort these two young ladies to the car," McFarland said through gritted teeth.
"I don't think so. Catch!" I quickly reached into the front pocket on my backpack, grabbed a small grey oval rock and threw it at Regina McFarland.
She tried to catch it but it slipped through her fingers and fell on the ground. And since it was already cracked from when I fell on it, it broke in half. Suddenly crows came flying at McFarland from all directions seeking payback for their broken egg. In seconds she was covered. I couldn't tell her screams from the cries of the birds. Tomi and I ran past Roy and Max, who were frantically trying to beat the birds off their boss, and across the rock bridge. As we ran down the path leading back to the Petit Trianon, the real Mildred and her friends were headed towards the Belvedere from the direction of the Temple of Love.
"I can't believe you took the trickster crow eggs from the vault," Tomi panted accusingly when we reached the parking lot in front the Petit Trianon's gates.
We'd retrieved the crow eggs on a mission in Santa Fe, New Mexico a year ago, from a shady antiques dealer who'd stolen them from a Native American folk museum. Crows have a reputation for being tricksters, liars, and thieves. These particular eggs were hundreds of years old, petrified, and said to have been inhabited by Cholena, the spirit of the trickster crow of Native American legend. Crows are also notoriously protective of their eggs and their young. As long as the eggs were intact, you were safe. If any harm came to them, then the crows came after whoever inflicted the damage, and if they wanted to be sneaky, were even known to impersonate humans.
"I only took one egg and don't even go there, Tomi. Sherlock's cap is on your head. And why does it reek of chocolate?"
Tomi blushed and wouldn't answer or look me in the eye. She sighed and leaned against a car. "Now, what? How are we gonna get Alex back?"
"By following McFarland back to her lair," I said, gesturing towards McFarland's black SUV. "She probably thinks we're long gone by now. She won't even know we're here."
We popped the lock on the back of the large SUV and checked to make sure no one was watching before we crawled inside. We squeezed behind a spare tire and couple of large boxes. I covered us up with a big, stained canvas tarp smelling slightly of gasoline.
"I sure hope this works," whispered Tomi.
It took ten minutes before Dr. McFarland and the bald dudes got back to the SUV. From all the moaning and groaning she was doing, we knew those crows must have gotten her good. But she refused to be taken to the hospital.
"Just get me back to the farm!" she snapped when one of her goons suggested medical help. "We need to check on our guest."
Tomi nudged me under the tarp. McFarland had to be talking about Alex. After fifteen minutes of bumping and jolting, the SUV came to a stop and they all got out. Tomi was ready to jump out too, but I made her wait another ten minutes until I was sure the coast was clear. Once we scrambled out the back, we could see we were in the country. The SUV was parked by a stone farmhouse next to a large and open grassy field. What was in the middle field made us do a double-take.
"It's a labyrinth," whispered Tomi in amazement. "Why would McFarland have a labyrinth?"
The labyrinth wasn't made up of hedges like ours back home. It had been cut into the tall grass with a lawn mower and was a third of the size.
"It must have something to do with why she wanted Marie's necklace so bad."
"I don't like this, Lily. Let's find Alex and get out of here."
She didn't have to tell me twice. We crept around the side of the farmhouse to the back where the yard was a jungle of junk and overgrown weeds.
"How're we going to get into the house?" asked Tomi.
"Maybe he's not in the house."
I pointed to the back of the yard where there was a small stone shed. When the door to the shed swung open and one of the baldy twins stepped out carrying a tray of dirty dishes, Tomi and I ducked behind a rusted out wheelbarrow. After he padlocked the door and went back into the house, we ran over to the shed. But we couldn't see in, because the windows had been painted over.
"Alex. Are you in there?" I called out as loud as I dared through the keyhole. I pressed my ear to the door.
"Don't be daft," came an irritated voice behind us.
Tomi and I just about jumped out of our skin. It was Alex. He was alive and well and had barely a mark on him. He grabbed each of us by the arm and dragged us behind the shed.
"Where have you two been? I've been looking for you for hours!"
"Us? Why wouldn't you answer your phone? We thought you'd been kidnapped by McFarland." I waved the cell phone pic of him bound and gagged in his face. He went pale and Tomi threw her arms around him.
"Don't ever scare us again," she said into his shirt. Alex's face softened and he hugged her back.
"I'm sorry, luv. I lost me phone during the fight with Baldilocks. McFarland must have found it and used it to trick you. I had to run all over town trying to find a new phone, which let me tell you ain't easy on a Sunday. Then I had to download the GPS software so I could track you lot down. What's wrong, Lily?" he asked when he realized I wasn't paying attention. A chill had just gone down my spine.
"If you're out here, then who's in there?" I said, pointing to the shed.
I never got an answer because Tweedledee and Tweedledum were back… and they had guns.
Part Five:
Mia and the Objects of Supernatural Origin
Chapter Twelve
"Stop staring at people. You're being rude," whispered Devon.
"Stop calling the kettle black, Miss Pot," I replied. Devon rolled her eyes and shook her head.
It was the first time she'd spoken to me since we'd arrived in Paris. We'd gotten into another big argument at the train station in Versailles when she found out I'd lied about having the cell phone Mrs. T. gave me. Devon was hoping to use it to get in touch with the others. She'd used all the money she had on our train tickets and couldn't buy a cheap disposable one. All I had was a twenty-dollar bill, which was useless in France. I'd purposefully left everything my foster mother had given me behind because I wanted to prove I wasn't a thief. I ended up treating her just like Mr. and Mrs. Higgins had treated me. Boy, did I owe her an apology.
Anyway, now we were on the metro hoping to beat the group from St. Albans back to their hotel. And for the record, I hadn't been staring at anyone. I was just, well, staring off into space. But could you blame me? Here I was in Paris, France with a girl I couldn't stand, wearing damp clothes, reeking of smoke, and chasing after a cell phone to make contact with kidnappers. I got to France through a portal in the garden labyrinth. Maybe I was having a weird and crazy dream, probably from eating the barbecue chicken and baked beans last night. But Tomi whacked me pretty hard across the face and it sure felt real to me. Plus, my cheek was still a little sore. And if I pinch myself, which I've done at least a half a dozen times, not only does it hurt like a son of gun, but I'm not waking up. So, much as I hated to admit it, what's happened to me so far has been one hundred percent real. And do you want to know the craziest part? I saw a ghost!
It happened back at the Palace of Versailles in the Green Library. We'd been through every room in the queen's private apartments and couldn't find any picture of Marie Antoinette wearing a necklace like the one described in Father Billon's journal. I was waiting for Devon to figure out our next move when suddenly there she was — Marie Antoinette. At first I thought it was a tour gui
de dressed in a costume who was going to give some kind of presentation or something, like when my fifth-grade class went to Colonial Williamsburg for our big class trip. It's a living history museum where the people who work there dress up like they did back in the colonial days.
The woman in the Green Library was dressed in one of those fancy silk gowns I always see Marie Antoinette wearing in paintings, with a big hoop skirt and the low neckline with lace and ruffles all over the place. Her hair was the whitish grey color my grandma called ash blonde, piled high on her head in elaborate curls, with jewel-covered combs tucked into it. She even had the same oval-shaped blue eyes as the real Marie. Her skin was so pale I bet the sun never touched it. But it was probably just covered with powder. I could even smell her heavy, flowery-scented perfume.
I waited for faux Marie to start talking about life at Versailles but she never said a word. She just glanced over her shoulder like she was afraid she was being watched and then went over to the bookshelf. And then it happened. She stuck her hand right through the glass and pulled a thick blue book trimmed in gold off the shelf. Only it wasn't a book. It was a box disguised as a book. Then she pulled a piece of parchment paper from inside the left sleeve of her gown, shoved it inside the box, put it back on the shelf and… disappeared into thin air.
I just stared at the spot in front of the bookshelf where she disappeared. For a few minutes I couldn't move and barely breathed. Then Devon started asking me what was wrong. But I couldn't talk. It wasn't because I was scared. Yeah, I was shocked. Who wouldn't be? But I wanted to know what Marie had put into the box. Next thing I knew, I was pulling on the glass doors protecting the books, trying to get at the blue box. I didn't care who saw me or about getting caught and strangely enough, somehow I knew I wouldn't get caught, at least not then. I wasn't surprised at all when the glass door popped open.
When we found the sketch of Marie wearing the necklace, I had the eeriest feeling she'd wanted me to find it. But there was no way I was telling Devon what I'd seen. I already knew how crazy it would sound, and I knew she'd be a jerk about it. But since I now knew about Morgan being kidnapped, I guess I couldn't blame her for being so mean. I still don't know why I'd run after Devon instead going back to the gardens. I was more shocked when she'd burst out crying than I had been at seeing a ghost. I bet crying wasn't something she did a lot. I guess I just didn't want her to be alone.